http://www.democracynow.org – As the United States moves toward increased intervention in Syria, we’re joined by Robert Fisk, the longtime Middle East correspondent of the British newspaper The Independent. Just back from two weeks in Syria reporting around the capital Damascus, Fisk discusses what he calls the “theater of chemical weapons,” the latest in Syria’s civil war — a battle he says the Syrian government is winning — as well as his reaction to what he calls President Obama’s “pitiful” backing of the recent Israeli missile strikes. “Don’t ask me if they have used chemical weapons,” Fisk says. “It’s conceivable. There really isn’t any proof. What you have got to realize is that this is a propaganda war just as much as it is a savage war, killing many thousands of human beings.”
It acknowledged Israel had made some “positive changes” in its treatment of young detainees in recent years.
Israel said it would “work hard” to adopt the report’s recommendations.
According to the report, an estimated 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17 are arrested by Israeli security forces in the West Bank every year.
It said ill-treatment typically began with arrests carried out in the middle of the night and continued through to prosecution and sentencing.
The report said unacceptable practices included “blindfolding children and tying their hands with plastic ties, physical and verbal abuse during transfer to an interrogation site, including the use of painful restraints”.
It said during interrogation, some detained children had been “threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault, against themselves or a family member”.
Syria says Israel has effectively declared war after its planes bombed targets in Damascus, the second airstrikes in as many days. Egypt has condemned the Israeli airstrikes on Syria, with the Arab League also demanding action from the UN Security Council. For more on this RT speaks with Asia Times Online correspondent Pepe Escobar.
Syria says Israel has effectively declared war, after its planes bombed targets in Damascus, the second airstrikes in as many days. Syria’s state media says Israeli rockets targeted a military research centre on the outskirts of the capital. Video footage and eye witness accounts suggest the attacks hit weapons dumps, triggering large explosions.
Syria says a number of people were killed and wounded amid widespread destruction. The Arab League has condemned the strikes and demanded the UN Security Council act to stop any more. The League say there has been a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty”. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter bans the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. RT’s Gayane Chichakyan in Washington and Polly Boiko in London told RT more about the reaction coming from the UK and the US.
Five weeks ago, the head of the Arab League capped a summit in Qatar with an impassioned appeal to strengthen the rebel fighters trying to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad. On Sunday, he denounced Israeli’s airstrike into Assad’s territory as a dangerous threat to regional stability.
The contrast reflects a fundamental conundrum for Arab leaders.
Nearly all Arab states have sided with the rebel forces seeking to topple Assad and inflict a blow to his main ally, Iran. And Sunday’s attack by Israeli warplanes in Syria — the second in three days — was the type of punishing response many Arab leaders have urged from the West against Assad after more than two years of civil war.
The fact the fighter jets came from Israel, however, exposes the complications and regional crosscurrents that make Syria the Arab Spring’s most intricate puzzle.
While Israel and much of the Arab world share suspicions about Iran, including worries over its nuclear ambitions and expanding military, the perception that they are allied against Assad — even indirectly — is strongly knocked down by many Arab leaders.
The airstrikes also highlight one of the critical side issues of the Syrian conflict: the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Israeli warplanes apparently targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made Fateh-110 guided missiles believed to be bound for Hezbollah.
Toppling Assad would cut the arms pipeline that runs from Shiite giant Iran to Hezbollah. But Hezbollah remains deeply popular on the Arab street for its battles with Israel, including a war in 2006 in which Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel.
No Arab leader wants to be perceived as giving a green light for Israeli attacks.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby warned of serious repercussions from the Israeli attacks and called on the U.N. Security Council to “immediately move to stop the Israeli aggressions on Syria.”
Elaraby described the Israeli airstrikes as a “grave violation of the sovereignty of an Arab state that will further complicate the issue in Syria and expose the region’s security and stability to the most serious threats and consequences.”
(Reuters) – The Arab League condemned Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip as “crimes against humanity” on Wednesday.
Arab foreign ministers said they “strongly condemn the barbaric crimes that the Israeli occupation forces committed in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories”.
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Meeting to prepare for an Arab summit in Syria this month that is expected to focus on Gaza and Lebanon, the ministers said in a statement they were “recording these Israeli crimes as crimes of war and crimes against humanity”.
Israel ended a five-day Gaza military offensive on Monday in which more than 120 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. It has threatened to send troops back to the Hamas-run coastal territory if cross-border rocket attacks continue.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said: “The criminal aggression against Gaza shows that Israeli policy against the Palestinian people is based on genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks, but did not specify a date.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who froze negotiations on Sunday in protest at the Gaza attacks, said talks could not get underway until Israel reached a ceasefire with Gaza militants behind the rocket attacks.
In Cairo, the Arab ministers called on Palestinians to end internal divisions. Islamist Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’s Fatah faction in June.
Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan speaks to reporters on May 5, 2013.
Sun May 5, 2013 2:13PM
Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan says Iran is ready to train the Syrian army should Damascus require assistance.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Pourdastan added that the Syrian army has gained experience during years of conflict with the occupying regime of Israel, and has the ability to defend itself with no need for foreign assistance.
“As a Muslim and friendly country, we stand by Syria and if there is need for training, we will provide them with necessary training,” the senior Iranian commander asserted.
He, however, emphasized that Iran would not have “active involvement in their operations.”
Pourdastan’s remarks came as the Syrian state television reported on Sunday that Israel has carried out an airstrike against the Jamraya Research Center, located northwest of the capital, Damascus. The center had been targeted by another Israeli airstrike back in January.
Published time: May 05, 2013 13:59
Edited time: May 05, 2013 18:04
Syria’s information minister says that those who infringe on Syria’s sovereignty must “study their choices carefully.” He said that Israel has “proved its link to terrorist groups.” Israel has reportedly launched two airstrikes against Syria in two days.
Omran al-Zoabi added that it is Damascus’ duty to “protect the state from any domestic or foreign attack through all available means.“
The minister’s comments came after an emergency cabinet meeting organized to respond to what a Western source called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Reuters reported.
The Arab League has condemned the alleged strike on Syria and urged the UN Security Council (UNSC) to “act immediately to end Israeli attacks on Syria,” calling the alleged strikes a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty.”
This follows reports of condemnation from Egyptian, Lebanese and Iranian leaders.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the UN and the UN Security Council protesting “Israeli aggression” that killed and wounded several people and “caused widespread destruction.” It also said the attacks aimed “to give direct military support to terrorist groups” fighting the government. It called the strikes a “flagrant violation of international law” that have made the Middle East “more dangerous.”
Still from YouTube video/momo1984momo1
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the attack proved that there is an alliance between Israel and Islamists trying to topple the Syrian government. In an interview with CNN he said the airstrikes are a “declaration of war” by Israel and that Syria would retaliate in its own time and way.
Egypt has also condemned the attack, saying it complicated a crisis that Cairo was trying to help resolve. The Egyptian government said in a statement that the strike was a violation of international law and a threat to the regional security.
The Obama administration is fully supportive of Israeli airstrikes on Syria, US officials and diplomatic sources told NBC News.
Iran calls for stand against Israel after Syria attack
DUBAI | Sun May 5, 2013 9:33am EDT
(Reuters) – Iran called on the region to unite against Israel after a reported attack on Syria and said it was ready to train the Damascus government’s army.
Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, targeting Iranian-supplied missiles headed for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a Western intelligence source said.
Tehran on Sunday denied the attack was aimed at “its missiles destined for Hezbollah resistance fighters in Lebanon,” according to the Islamic state’s English-language Press TV.
Iran has supported its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to suppress a rebellion that has raged for more than two years and which Tehran and Damascus say is being waged by Western-backed “terrorists”.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged countries in the region to stand against the “assault”, the Fars news agency reported on Sunday.
US President Barack Obama (R) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, March 5, 2012.
Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:15PM GMT
An Israeli attack on Syria will be definitely a geopolitical blunder not because such a strike will be regionally viral but because it will, to the disappointment of the Zionists, gain sympathy for Syria and condemnation for Israel.”
Dr. Ismail Salami, political analyst
A political analyst says Washington is currently too bedeviled to directly engage in a military confrontation in Syria, so it has undertaken to goad “other sinister forces” such as Israel into attacking the Arab country.
“Although Washington seems to have decided to monitor from afar the developments in Syria without any military intervention by avoiding a Libya-style scenario, they are resorting by any means to expedite the collapse of [the Syrian President Bashar] Assad regime,” Dr. Ismail Salami wrote in an article on Press TV website.
The Iranian author said Washington, which has long “run out of novel ideas and well-wrought out plans” to further its objectives in the Middle East, has now clung to the “farcically banal excuse” of the Syrian regime’s alleged stockpile of chemical weapons.
“This has furnished the Pentagon officials with ample reasons to avail themselves of the generous contributions the Zionist regime can dole out to this end.”
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor and several Western media outlets have recently claimed that Damascus possesses and intends to use chemical weapons against its own people.
On July 18, the New York Times reported that US officials have recently been in talks with Israelis ”about whether Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities”.
Syria, however, has dismissed allegations that it intends to use chemical weapons to end months of unrest, stressing that it will never use weapons of mass destruction against its own people.
‘Israel used depleted uranium shells in air strike’ – Syrian source
Published time: May 05, 2013 19:08
RT
Video still of Hezbollah TV’s footage claiming to show the aftermath of an alleged Israeli airstrike on a military facility near Damascus, on May 5 2013
Israel used “a new type of weapon”, a senior official at the Syrian military facility that came under attack from the Israeli Air Force told RT.
“When the explosion happened it felt like an earthquake,” said the source, who was present near the attack site on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning.
“Then a giant golden mushroom of fire appeared. This tells us that Israel used depleted uranium shells.”
Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process that creates nuclear weapons, and was first used by the US in the Gulf conflict of 1991. Unlike the radioactive materials used in nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is not valued for its explosiveness, but for its toughness – it is 2.5 times as dense as steel – which allows it to penetrate heavy protection.
Countries using depleted uranium weapons insist that the material is toxic, but not dangerously radioactive, as long as it remains outside the body.
Pakistani physicians and experts say the US uses chemical munitions in its non-UN-sanctioned drone strikes on Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
Experts revealed that those Pakistani civilians who have come under the unauthorized drone airstrike in Pakistan’s troubled northwest have been afflicted with complicated skin, eye and respiratory diseases due to the deadly chemical materials used in the missiles, the Press TV correspondent in Peshawar reported on Thursday.
According to journalists and experts from Waziristan that is a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan which has often been the focal point of US drone attacks, they have received numerous reports from several people and local doctors pointing at the hazardous effects of the ongoing drone attacks on the entire population.
“Since these drone strikes have been carried out, we have witnessed several peculiar disease cases, and our press club have been frequently visited by those complainants, who have developed skin and bronchial diseases in the aftermath of drone airstrikes. I’d like to add further that the agriculture and the livestock are also showing pitiable condition,” journalist Safdar Dawar told Press TV.
An expert from Waziristan says his daughter died of blood cancer soon after she had developed a skin disease, which was no more than the toxic effect of chemical substances used in the non-UN-sanctioned drone strikes.
“I myself lost my daughter, who was just 28 months old, she developed a skin disease and later on she was diagnosed, within a month, with blood cancer. At that time people were talking about the chemical bombings being carried out. The same is the case now that wherever the drone attacks are carried out, people in that area are complaining about skin diseases, lung infections, throat infections and various kinds of other diseases,” Pakistani political expert Safiullah Gul said.
The report strikes at the heart of growing tension between the United States and Pakistan over the US aerial attacks on Pakistani soil.
Washington claims the airstrikes target militants. However, the attacks have killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan since 2008, local reports say.
On the next episode of VICE, premiering on HBO this Friday, April 19th at 11 PM, we interview Congressman Jim McDermott of the Seventh District of Washington State. Congressman McDermott has been one of the only experts and advocates in the US government on the issue of depleted uranium in Iraq. We sit down with him to get a firsthand account of the military’s history of using depleted uranium munitions, the legacy it has left behind in Iraq, and why the US government refuses to do anything about it.
Since the assaults on Fallujah in 2004, the city has seen an astronomical rise in birth defects and abnormalities, including some too new to even have a proper medical name. VICE went back to Iraq to investigate.
IRAQ WAR: Birth Defects And Cancer
PLAGUE: Birth Defects Plague Iraq
PROJECT: Justice For Fallujah ProjectWe are a group of veterans, students, and working people dedicated to raising awareness about the suffering of the people of Fallujah, promoting solidarity with the victims of U.S. war crimes, and ultimately ending all U.S. wars and occupations.
Former Bush administration official says Syrian chemical weapons use might’ve been “false flag operation” of Israel.
Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Photo: Screenshot
A former senior official in the Bush administration said on Thursday the use of chemical weapons in Syria might have been a “false flag operation” of Israel, meant to implicate Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“We don’t know what the chain of custody is. This could’ve been an Israeli false flag operation, it could’ve been an opposition in Syria… or it could’ve been an actual use by Bashar Assad. But we certainly don’t know with the evidence we’ve been given. And what I’m hearing from the intelligence community is that that evidence is really flakey,” retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, told Cenk Uygur in an interview with Current TV.
Given this “flimsy evidence,” Wilkerson doesn’t believe a red line has been crossed in Syria, and that the US should not base its intervention in the war-torn country based on such evidence.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell
Sun May 5, 2013 1:2AM GMT
0
A former senior US official says the use of chemical weapons in Syria might have been a “false flag operation” conducted by Israel to incriminate the Syrian government.
Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as the chief of staff of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell during the administration of President George W. Bush, said he did not believe the Syrian government has crossed a red line.
“What I’m hearing from the intelligence community is that that evidence is really flakey,” Wilkerson said in an interview with Current TV on Thursday.
He also advised the US government not to intervene on the basis of such “flimsy evidence.”
While opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accuse his government of using chemical weapons on their own country’s citizens, Damascus says the attacks were perpetrated by foreign-backed militants operating in the country.
Commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wilkerson said he is leading “basically a geo-strategically, geo-political — if you will — inept regime.”
“I think we saw really startling evidence of that,” he noted, “in the fact that President Obama had to tell Bibi Netanyahu ‘Pick up the phone, you idiot, call Ankara and get yourself out of this strategic isolation you’re in right now.”
Wilkerson was referring to the fact that US President Barack Obama pushed Netanyahu to formally apologize to Turkey over a 2010 attack that killed eight Turkish civilians aboard the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla while the ships were in international waters.
He went on to say that Israel is currently in “a very, very dangerous situation,” given the growing influence of resistance groups, the ouster of pro-Israeli Arab dictators by popular revolutions, and the crisis in Syria.
“The president (Obama) has got to be very circumspect about what he does in exacerbating that situation. Netanyahu is clueless as to this,” Wilkerson stated.
“I hope that President Obama gave him a lecture into geo-strategic realities,” he added.
Israel strikes Syrian military research center, US official says
Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes against targets inside Syria on Friday, as the United States continued to weigh its options for action in the country. However, President Obama said that U.S. troops on the ground was unlikely. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.
By Robert Windrem, Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News
Israeli jets bombed a military research facility north of Damascus early Sunday, a senior official told NBC News, the second Israeli attack on targets in Syria in recent days.
Heavy explosions shook the city, and video shot by activists showed a fireball rising into the sky after Sunday’s strikes, according to Reuters.
On Friday, Israeli warplanes launched strikes against targets inside Syria, U.S. officials told NBC News. It’s believed the primary target was a shipment of weapons headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon, they said. A senior U.S. official said the airstrikes were believed to be related to delivery systems for chemical weapons.
An Israeli spokesman in Washington said that Israel would not comment specifically on the reports but said that “Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, especially to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
It wasn’t clear whether the Israelis alerted the U.S. before the attack. White House officials referred all questions to the Israelis.
Syrian government sources denied having information of a strike. Bashar Ja’afari, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters: “I’m not aware of any attack right now.”
But Qassim Saadedine, a commander and spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told the news agency: “Our information indicates there was an Israeli strike on a convoy that was transferring missiles to Hezbollah. We have still not confirmed the location.”
US President Barack Obama leaves the Inclusive Economic Growth and Development forum in San Jose, Costa Rica on May 4, 2013.
Sat May 4, 2013 11:22PM GMT
15
US President Barack Obama has said Israel has the right to launch airstrikes on Syria, one day after the Israeli regime’s second airstrike on the country this year.
In an interview with the Spanish-language network Telemundo in San Jose, Costa Rica on Saturday, Obama stated that Israel has the right to protect itself from what he called advanced weapons shipments to Lebanon.
He said he would not comment on the veracity of the reports on the attack and would let the Israeli regime “confirm or deny whatever strikes that they’ve taken.”
“What I have said in the past and I continue to believe is that the Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry” to resistance movements like Hezbollah, Obama stated.
“We coordinate closely with the Israelis, recognizing that they are very close to Syria, they are very close to Lebanon,” he added.
Earlier, Israel confirmed it carried out an aerial attack on Syria on Friday, claiming it targeted a shipment of “game-changing” weapons.
The Lebanese military also stated that pairs of Israeli warplanes entered Lebanese airspace three times overnight.
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel called it being “cold-blooded about the self-interests of your nation.”
Obama’s the latest US warrior president. Imperial lawlessness defines his agenda. Out-of-control militarism rages. Humanity’s survival is threatened.
Syria is Obama’s war. Direct intervention looms. Claims about Syria using chemical weapons don’t wash. Syrian officials categorically deny them.
On April 27, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) headlined “Information Minister: Western Sides Are Directly Responsible for Chemical Weapons Use in Khan al-Assal,” saying:
Omran al-Zoubi said chemical weapons likely came from Turkey. “The US-British and Western allegations in general on this issue do not have any credibility.”
A missile targeting Khan al-Assal came from a terrorist-controlled location. Syria requested an investigation. According to SANA:
“Al-Zoubi held the Western sides directly responsible for what happened in Khan al-Assal, saying they want now to hide behind this ‘fabricated and false’ talk to justify their silence on failing the investigation mission requested by Syria and to exonerate the terrorists.”
“The Minister added that the US is already involved in large-scale terrorist operations in the world, and is involved in Syria now because of its support for and silence on the terrorism committed by the terrorist groups.”
The road to Tehran runs through Damascus. Waging full-scale war on Syria looms. It appears prelude to targeting Iran. Spurious Iranian threats continue.
Connect the dots. Post-Boston bombings, expect Obama to take full advantage. Media scoundrels regurgitate official lies. Doing so facilitates America’s war agenda.
Independent nations aren’t tolerated. Washington demands pro-Western ones. Outliers are targeted for regime change. War is America’s option of choice if other methods fail. Syria may be prelude to Iran.
On April 25, the Jerusalem Post headlined ” ‘Red lines’ at the ‘Post’ conference,” saying:
“Red lines” dominate today’s headlines. Israel and Washington repeat them. In late February, former Israeli intelligence head Amos Yadlin’s New York Times op-ed headlined “Israel’s Last Chance to Strike Iran,” saying:
“Today, Israel sees the prospect of a nuclear Iran that calls for our annihilation as an existential threat.”
Iran, of course, threatens no one. It hasn’t attacked another nation in over two centuries.
“An Israeli strike against Iran would be a last resort, if all else failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program,” Yadlin added.
Now he’s warning that Israel’s on “a collision course (with Iran) by the end of the year.”
He’ll speak at the Jerusalem Post’s second annual conference. It’s theme is “Fighting for the Zionist Dream.” It’s scheduled for April 28 in New York.
Two panels will discuss Syrian and Iranian red lines. Yadlin will participate along with former and current key Israeli officials.
Yadlin heads Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. He spoke at its recent Tel Aviv conference. He claims Iran may cross Netanyahu’s red line by summer.
If uranium enrichment continues “at its current rate, toward the end of the year (Tehran) will cross the red line in a clear manner,” he claimed.
Earlier he said, “Despite all of the attempts made to stop the nuclear program, no one is able to stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.”
“By summer, Iran will be a month or two away from a decision about the bomb,” he added. He claims Tehran has enough low-enriched uranium for six bombs.
“They have no problem converting back what they allegedly turned to nuclear fuel. Within a week, it could be turned into nuclear material for a bomb,” he said.
He urged military action. America’s credibility is on the line, he stressed. “This credibility will be achieved if the US aims a precise strike to stop the Iranian nuclear program and shows that it can deal with the escalation that would follow this strike.”
He’s not alone. Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor Caroline Glick headlined “Time to confront Obama,” saying:
Iran “crossed the threshold. Iran will be a nuclear power unless its uranium enrichment installations and other nuclear sites are destroyed or crippled. Now.”
“Iran has threatened to use it nuclear arsenal to destroy Israel.”
“(E)ither Israel must launch an attack without delay, or if we can’t, then Netanyahu has to publicly state that the time for diplomacy is over. Either Iran is attacked or it gets the bomb.”
It bears repeating. Iran threatens no one. No evidence suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Annually, US intelligence says so. Israeli, American, and other Western officials know what they won’t admit publicly.
Published time: April 22, 2013 16:01
Edited time: April 22, 2013 21:03
RT
AFP Photo / Jonathan Nackstrand
A Jordanian military official has refuted the reports that Jordan has opened two air corridors for Israeli drones to monitor the Syrian conflict. The official told RT Arabic that an earlier report by Le Figaro was “inaccurate and groundless.”
Citing a Western military source, the French daily said the decision to open Jordanian airspace to the Israelis had been reached in March following a visit by President Barack Obama to the country.
“The Syrians have Russian air defense assets, but Israeli aircraft are difficult to detect and therefore virtually immune to anti-aircraft measures,” said the unnamed source to Le Figaro. The military craft will fly at night to minimize the risk of detection and are capable of striking a target “anywhere in Syria.”
The report follows an alleged Israeli strike at targets inside the Syrian border in acts branded as a violation of the UN charter. The new aerial corridors through Jordan will allow Israeli aircraft to avoid flying over southern Lebanon and inciting a possible aggressive response from Hezbollah.
Israel has repeatedly voiced its concern over stockpiles of chemical weapons in Syria and the possibility they may fall into the wrong hands. In late January the Israeli government issued a number of warnings to Syria before reports of an air strike on what Damascus claimed was a “scientific research center” emerged. Israel did not take direct responsibility for the strike, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied Israeli involvement.
“I keep telling you frankly that … when we say something we mean it. We say that we don’t think [Hezbollah should be allowed] to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon,” he told journalists in Germany a week after the attacks.
The US got behind Israel, stating that Washington had been informed prior to the strike on what was also said to be a weapons convoy heading to Lebanon.
An Israeli soldier walks by an ‘Iron Dome’ short-range missile defense system positioned near the northern city of Haifa on Jan. 31, 2013 in Israel. The Iron Dome missile defense system is designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells.
Israeli warplanes struck several targets inside Syria overnight Tuesday, including a biological weapons research center that was reportedly flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist extremists fighting to topple the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad, Western intelligence officials tell TIME.
So far only two airstrikes have been publicly reported, amid a flurry of conflicting initial reports. Syria officially complained of the destruction of the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamarya northwest of Damascus. And a variety of news organizations reported that Israeli jets hit a convoy carrying advanced anti-aircraft defense systems toward Lebanon’s Bakaa Valley, presumably for delivery to Hizballah, the militant Shi’ite group closely allied with the Assad regime. If they had been deployed, those SA-17 ground-to-air missiles would intimidated Israeli pilots who now operate over Lebanese airspace with impunity, forcing them to higher altitudes and other operational precautions.
A Western intelligence official indicated to TIME that at least one to two additional targets were hit the same night, without offering details. Officials also said that Israel had a “green light” from Washington to launch yet more such strikes.
Hizballah is not Israel’s only concern – or perhaps even the most worrying. Details of the Israeli strikes make clear the risk posed by fundamentalist militants sprinkled among the variegated rebel forces fighting to depose Assad. The jihadists are overwhelmingly home-grown Sunni militants but also include foreigners drawn to the fight from across the Muslim world. Loosely organized into several fighting groups, some fighters embrace the almost nihilist ideology associated with al-Qaeda. But jihadist groups are less vulnerable to the same levers that have proved effective against Syria and other states – such as threats to its territory — or even the frank interests of an organization like Hizballah, which as a political party plays a major role in Lebanon’s government.
“If we succeeded all these years to deter the Syrians and all the other surrounding countries that possess weapons of mass destruction [from making] use of it, it’s because we knew how to deliver the message, that the price would be very high,” Amnon Sofrin, a retired brigadier and former senior Mossad official, told reporters this week. “What kind of threat can you put in the face of a terror organization?”
